Taxes

Once there was a time when 30-page college papers were typed on portable electric typewriters, research was done in library stacks, and job applications were filled out by hand. Taxes were filed on paper and mailed (postmarked no later than April 15th) at the local post office, and shopping meant going to the local market and buying what was available at the store. How times have changed.

A February 4, 2013 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report confirmed what taxpayer watchdog groups such as Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) have been warning about for years: Obamacare is an unprecedented disaster for every American’s personal health and the country’s economic health.

On November 1, 2014, the moratorium banning discriminatory taxes on the Internet and taxes on Internet access imposed by the Internet Tax Freedom Act in 1998 will expire. At the time the legislation was initially enacted, the Internet had approximately 300 million users. Since then, the number of users on the Internet has increased to nearly 2.3 billion world-wide.

Yesterday, the President traveled to Tennessee to discuss his “new” proposal for spurring on the economy and creating jobs. He proposes to lower the corporate tax rate and simplify the tax code by closing tax “loopholes.” Currently, the federal tax rate in the U.S.

The June 2013 early release report on wireless substitution by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) indicates that the percentage of adults and children living in households with wireless only telephone service has been on a steady increase since 2003. The data in the report indicates that wireless-only population is now about 36.5 percent and overall household adoption of wireless is now set at 89 percent of the population in the U.S. as of the end of 2012.

The adoption of wireless communications has grown from 48.7 million subscribers in 1997 to 321.7 million subscribers in 2012. Despite the increased use of this innovative technology, the wireless industry is one of the most heavily taxed in the nation. The U.S.

As the Illinois legislature winds up the 2013 session by creating a new $750,000 “Forever Green Illinois Program” (it's really there on pp. 8-9 of the 284-page budget bill) that would fund the “maintenance and beautification of greenery,” including grass, weeds, trees, shrubs, bushes, and plants on state or local government property, elected officials should also consider adopting a new official state song: "Forever Red; I Want to Be, Forever Red."

By now I am sure you have heard that the IRS targeted and harassed Tea Party and conservative groups that were trying to obtain non-profit status. If a group used words like “tea party” or “patriot” in their organization’s name or the phrase “making America a better place to live” it was enough to raise the ire of some IRS bureaucrats who would then slow-walk their application for non-profit standing with the agency. The IRS would also ask of the groups for information that were an unnecessary or illegal intrusion into their affairs such as a list of their donors, whether one of the organ